Pamela, Volume II eBook

read every one that passes between us. Nay, Jackey,
for that matter, who was the most thoughtless, whistling,
sauntering fellow you ever knew, and whose delight
in a book ran no higher than a song or a catch, now
comes in with an enquiring face, and vows he’ll
set pen to paper, and turn letter-writer himself;
and intends (if my brother won’t take it amiss,
he says) to begin to you, provided he could
be sure of an answer.

I have twenty things still to say; for you have unlocked
all our bosoms. And yet I intended not to write
above ten or a dozen lines when I began; only to tell
you, that I would have you take your own way, in your
subjects, and in your style. And if you will but
give me hope, that you are in the way I so much wish
to have you in, I will then call myself your affectionate
sister; but till then, it shall only barely be your
correspondent,

LETTER XIII

MY DEAR GOOD LADY,

What kind, what generous things are you pleased to
say of your happy correspondent! And what reason
have I to value myself on such an advantage as is
now before me, if I am capable of improving it as I
ought, from a correspondence with so noble and so admired
a lady! To be praised by such a genius, and my
honoured benefactor’s worthy sister, whose favour,
next to his, it was always my chief ambition to obtain,
is what would be enough to fill with vanity a steadier
and a more equal mind than mine.

I have heard from my late honoured lady, what a fine
pen her beloved daughter was mistress of, when she
pleased to take it up. But I never could have
presumed, but from your ladyship’s own motion,
to hope to be in any manner the subject of it, much
less to be called your correspondent.

Indeed, Madam, I am very proud of this honour,
and consider it as such a heightening to my pleasures,
as only that could give; and I will set about
obeying your ladyship without reserve.

But, first, permit me to disclaim any merit, from
my own poor writings, to that improvement which your
goodness imputes to me. What I have to boast,
of that sort, is owing principally, if it deserves
commendation, to my late excellent lady.

It is hard to be imagined what pains her ladyship
took with her poor servant. Besides making me
keep a book of her charities dispensed by me, I always
set down, in my way, the cases of the distressed, their
griefs from misfortunes, and their joys of her bountiful
relief; and so I entered early into the various turns
that affected worthy hearts, and was taught the better
to regulate my own, especially by the help of her
fine observations, when I read what I wrote. For
many a time has her generous heart overflowed with
pleasure at my remarks, and with praises; and I was
her good girl, her dear Pamela, her hopeful maiden;
and she would sometimes snatch my hand with transport,
and draw me to her, and vouchsafe to kiss me; and
always was saying, what she would do for me, if God
spared her, and I continued to be deserving.